Unraveling The Flash: My Theory

I will be the first to admit that I was never enticed by the Arrow when it came out, nor the Flash when it popped up (to me, out of nowhere). Then, staying at a friend's house, we binge watched the first 5 episodes of Flash one night and I was hooked. Before the crossover in late November, I binged on Arrow through Netflix.

Took a week. Phew, it was a lot of watching and avoiding sleep, which did not pair well with 40 hours a week of physical labor. Meh.

Oh well. Worth it.

Now, my fan theory. If you're reading this, I am going to guess that you are a frequent viewer of the show, so you know the details of what's going on. Thus, spoiler alert is not necessary.

But I just said it, so at least you've been forewarned. Moving on.

I have read and seen a lot of views about how this season will play out. Of course we know some things, like there's a big fight towards the end with Oliver Queen coming along for the ride as the new demon head. And of course, for good measure, Firestorm is there as well.

But how did we get to this fight?

Right, Eobard Thawne ran through time to kill a young Barry, and adult Barry stopped him, but Thawne killed his mother instead. Then Thawne lost his speed force and then took the life of Harrison Wells to become him and set things in motion faster than it was supposed to be.

So let's look at this from different points.

Barry Allen is The Flash

POINT 1: Adult Barry?

Does no one else find this odd? How did adult Barry follow Thawne/Zoom through time to stop him? Zoom is from the 26th century, or thereabouts. Barry, in no way shape or form, could have lived that long.

Therein lies the answer: Barry did not FOLLOW Zoom.

Barry remembers everything about that night. Vividly. He says so pretty frequently. He remembers the time. When he tells Joe that he is going to go back in time to save his mother, he comes back at that precise moment. In fact, if you saw the episode about Zoom, They were not right on top of each other. There was a split second between their arrivals.

I know, a split second doesn't seem to be much. But to these two speedsters? A split second is like a minute or more to us.

So Barry traveled back through time in 2024 to stop Zoom and came out of the timeline at the same time.

POINT 2: Why didn't he save her?

You can make a strong case that he tried his darnedest. He fought with Zoom, and then young Barry walked in. Knowing full well that he would cease to exist if Zoom killed the young him, he took young Barry away and understood that he was not meant to save his mother. He was meant to save himself, to become something greater and save other mother's, and their kids.

Zoom, of course, kept the timeline right so he could come back and go for another try.

Then he lost his powers. He was stuck in time. He became Harrison Wells.

Harrison Wells, actually Eobard Thawne

POINT 3: Harrison Wells pushing Barry

Thawne told Wells when he took his identity that he wanted to expedite the particle accelerator explosion. Obviously, he wanted to push Barry to take his speed force and go back to his time. He told Cisco, so we know, even if that part was rewritten.

Wells knows that messing with time can change everything. He's calculating and smart. While he did altar the timeline by making the explosion happen sooner than it was supposed to happen, he did not change time drastically.

You can argue that we don't know for sure, and that there wouldn't have been these metahumans running around if he stuck to the original timeline.

Sure, valid argument; however, these metahumans would have existed anyway, it just altered these exact people, instead of someone else ten years from now.

Outside of this, everything points to Zoom keeping with the program so as to not screw anything up. He checks his magic paper every day to make sure it all stays in line.

Which brings me to...

Thawne/Zoom's reference point?

POINT 4: The magic newspaper

It never changes, except when Barry lost his speed for an episode. Have you noticed this? The paper never changes, and he only sees the front page.

This makes me wonder if its from some historical archive (obviously from the future that Gideon has access to).

Regardless, he bases everything he does on that paper, and its dated for 2024. Which is why I say him making the explosion happen early did not alter the timeline much at all.

Back to it. This paper, I think, is what he is waiting on. If this paper stays the same every day, that means Barry is getting closer to time jumping. The closer he gets to time jumping, the closer Zoom can return to his time. He obviously doesn't want it spoiled because he doesn't want to half-ass it. He wants to full speed force and Barry eliminated.

He is obviously waiting for that Jack Sparrow moment to take the speed force for himself from Barry.

RECAP

So let's recap what I think here, and I'll see if I can't do it in one paragraph:

Professor Zoom is keeping Barry on track for when he goes back in time in 2024 to stop Zoom because Zoom wants Barry to reach his peak performance. He may not be able to time travel before then, but his speed will be close to max and Zoom knows how to take it the rest of the way. Barry did not save his mother because he saved himself in an effort to try again, which sets Zoom up to be stuck in time and alter the timeline (a la the new Star Trek movies) to keep the same end game, but bring it faster.

Got it? Good.

One final question, one I cannot even think of something remotely close to being credible: what happened to adult Barry?

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